Ajax

Sophocles

Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 7: The Ajax. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.

  1. go inside and pray to the gods that the desires of my heart be completed to the very end.Exit Tecmessa. You also, my comrades, honor my wishes just as she does, and command Teucer, when he comes, to take care of us, and to be kind to you at the same time.
  2. I am going to where my journey inexorably leads. But you do as I say, and before long, perhaps, though I now suffer, you will hear that I have found rest and peace.
Chorus
  1. I shiver with rapture; I soar on the wings of sudden joy!
  2. O Pan, O Pan, appear to us, sea-rover, from the stony ridge of snow-beaten Cyllene. King, dancemaker for the gods, come, so that joining with us you may set on the Nysian and the Cnosian steps,
  3. your self-taught dances. Now I want to dance. And may Apollo, lord of Delos, step over the Icarian sea
  4. and join me in his divine form, in eternal benevolence!
Chorus
  1. Ares has dispelled the cloud of fierce trouble from our eyes. Joy, joy! Now, Zeus, now can the white radiance of prosperous days approach
  2. our swift, sea-speeding ships, since Ajax forgets his pain anew, and has instead fully performed all prescribed sacrifices to the gods with worship and strict observance. The strong years make all things fade.